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Do You Believe in "Slow Living"?

For some of us, DIY domesticity is just for fun, or a way to have a hobby that’s in line with our beliefs about sustainability or the importance of good food – we knit to pass time on the subway, we garden with our kids on the weekend to teach them where veggies come from. But for others, DIY domesticity is connected to larger lifestyle philosophies. As I’ve been researching my book, I’ve kept hearing terms like “Frugal Living” and “Voluntary Simplicity” and “Radical Homemaking.” These lifestyles, which stress anti-consumerism, localism, self-sufficiency and family, lend themselves to all kinds of old-fashioned domestic work – DIY soap, sewing your own clothes, homeschooling, etc.

One of these lifestyle philosophies, the Slow Movement, is particularly far-reaching. Since it began with Slow Food in the late 1980s, it’s been growing by leaps and bounds – there’s now Slow Cities, Slow Parenting, Slow Money, even Slow Books. The basic premise is this: our modern world moves too fast, and life would be more sustainable and more fulfilling if we slowed everything down a LOT.

The growing popularity of these movements helps explain the rise of New Domesticity – a parent inspired by Slow Parenting might choose to unschool their kids. A person interested in Slow Food might start growing their own strawberries and canning their own jam.

As the kind of person who likes to go fastfastfast, I wonder if I’d make a terrible candidate for the Slow Living lifestyle. As someone who likes to see EVERYTHING when I go somewhere new, Slow Travel might be a challenge. As a person who loves 24-hour grocery stores and midnight movies at the megaplex (and Super-Target!), I might find living in a Slow City somewhat…slow.

But I get these Slow Living movements. They’re reactions to a high-tech, sped-up world. They all offer a connection to local tradition in an era of globalism and mass culture. They all claim to offer a path to a more reflective, more fulfilling life. And who wouldn’t want that?

Have you heard of Slow Living? To you follow any particular lifestyle philosophy?

I don't have a philosophy about it, but I do live life in the slow lane. It has more to do with being an introvert and despising advertising, empty food, and consumerism. I just live the way I do because I like it, not because it makes some kind of point. I think fast fast fast is awesome for internet connections, for example.

We started a blog called slow living farm back in 2008. To us slow living isn't so much about the speed of your movement as it is the way you approach your days. Awake and aware is how we like to describe it. We try to give each task our full attention and absorb from it what we can. Each day, for us, is a study in refining our lives to be truly sustainable in the fullest sense of the word. We believe in changing the world by changing and healing the area you live in. As more people choose to live this way a mosaic of small parcels that will grow into an ever expanding larger one that will lead to positive and sustainable changes to our world.

We started a blog called slow living farm back in 2008. To us slow living isn't so much about the speed of your movement as it is the way you approach your days. Awake and aware is how we like to describe it. We try to give each task our full attention and absorb from it what we can. Each day, for us, is a study in refining our lives to be truly sustainable in the fullest sense of the word. We believe in changing the world by changing and healing the area you live in. As more people choose to live this way a mosaic of small parcels that will grow into an ever expanding larger one that will lead to positive and sustainable changes to our world.

As someone who previously embraced the fast live and 24 hour convenience, I can assure you that most people would embrace the slow lifestyle if they would just stop and relax for a moment. I started upon the slow lifestyle accidentally when I began making my own food (as I could not afford to pay for expensive, high quality ingredients) about 3 years ago and from that it's infected my entire life and now I find myself wanting a less strenuous career, lifestyle, and city. Now I enjoy living more rather than always trying to chase something that isn't there.

to paraphrase myself: leave it to human beings to take a perfectly wonderful idea and twist it into Movements and Lifestyles.

I sort of stumbled onto some of the feel the other day. Turned out there's actual organizations and books and summits and all that crap. While I can see the value in taking more time to enjoy life as an enjoyment for itself, I want absolutely no association with any of these 'leaders' or 'visionaries' or any of this 'mindfulness' - I actually stumbled on a term: mindful eating. WTF? You mean, 'enjoying a meal?' what's so fucking extraordinary about that? My research turns up zero evidence that the 'movement' contains a flea follicle degree of a sense of humor.

Almost makes me want to shift to the highest gear and mash the accelerator and keep it mashed and leave a roaring wake of noise pollution when flying off the cliff into the sea.

Heck they're probably nice people - one can hope. However if I had to be around it... you know you can get fanatical about anything.

Fanaticism. Fanaticism bites. Only the fanatic does not get on the fanatic's own nerves, but drives all the people to deep madness.

I'd point out here that "mindful eating" is actually a real issue, whether you join a branded and sloganeering group or not. Mindful eating is being aware of what you are eating while you are eating it, as opposed to watching television, stuffing down a load of food, and being completely unaware of what you ate or how much. It's not like no one ever thought of it before, it's just that so many people thoughtlessly stuff in food that there is a need to make them more aware of it. People who mindlessly shovel in food can't even accurately self report what they eat to their doctor/nutritionist, because they don't KNOW what they eat.

Agree with the rest of your point, though. Everyone is trying to brand and sell things that people have been doing forever. Look up "square foot gardening", and read what the author says about himself. He's got a massive ego and thinks he actually invented raised bed gardening, which has been in use for centuries.